OUR STORY
In 1996 on Nantucket Island, Ian McCarthy was a partner in Account-Ability providing accounting services for a multitude of small businesses. After a client’s sale fell through, Ian and a couple of friends decided to buy the landscaping business. Ian knew the books and billing side of the business, but as the company grew over the next several years, he decided to dive into landscaping full time and make it his focus. Ian’s wife, Tiffany, was from Cape Cod and so Ian began spending more time on the mainland. As a result, he began to consider expanding his landscaping business to Cape Cod. To help make the right decision, Ian hired Marty Grunder of the Winner’s Circle (now The Group Group) to consult with him. Ian utilized Marty’s services repeatedly over the next several years – both on-site consulting and by attending Marty’s events.
After discovering the Dingo mini skid loader at the New England Grows convention, Ian sought out Bob Maffei, the owner of Maffei Landscape Contractors in Marstons Mills. Bob was well known for being an early adopter of the Dingo. With Ian’s accounting background, Bob became his first consulting client, as Ian helped train Bob’s staff on CLIP accounting software. CLIP software would utilize Ian on numerous software deployments over the next few years.
Around 2005, Ian decided to pursue a different opportunity all together by investing in a semi-pro basketball team in Massachusetts. After a year of managing the team and realizing that a change of location would be needed to make it more professional, the team moved to Manchester, New Hampshire, and became the Manchester Millrats. While in New Hampshire, Ian served as part of the construction management team at the prestigious design-build firm, ZEN Associates Inc. in Woburn, Massachusetts. In 2010, he received a lucrative six-figure sponsorship offer from Rogers – a Canadian media company – to relocate the team to Saint John, New Brunswick. Thus, the Saint John Mill Rats were born and were soon playing in front of thousands of fans in a 6,000 seat arena. In 2011, Ian and Halifax, Nova Scotia team owner, Andre Levingston, announced the formation of the National Basketball League of Canada Inc. in Toronto, Ontario. For five years, Ian served as the Chief Operating Officer of the NBL Canada and the President and General Manager of the Mill Rats.
After his third child (and first daughter), Hazelle was born in 2014 in Massachusetts, and his family elected to remain stateside, Ian spent the next year and a half commuting between Canada and the U.S. In 2016, he informed his fellow board members in the league, his partners in the team, and fans and friends, that he would be returning to the states to be with his family full time.
While crabbing for fun that summer on Cape Cod he reconnected with Bob Maffei, who was seeking management help at his landscape company. Ian joined Maffei Landscape Contractors in the fall of 2016, managing the construction division. That winter he held a reunion for former employees of his old company at his home. At the reunion, his former employees urged him to restart a landscape company so they could work together again. It was that expression of loyalty that sparked the idea which would lead to Blue Claw Associates.
After a year at Maffei Landscape Contractors, Ian resigned from the company during the time that it was being sold to Chenmark Capital Management LLC. He began planning the launch of Blue Claw Associates Inc in the fall of 2017, building the social media and websites, and marketing the company. After a snowy spring, the business began working for clients in April of 2018. The first year the business subsisted on word of mouth while Ian continued to approach landscape architects, designers, and builders. After 8 months of operation, the business had achieved $300,000 in completed work and received its first major opportunity. It was a $600,000 hardscape project on Nantucket through a prominent landscape architect. Ian scaled the company rapidly to staff the project and at the same other projects. He leveraged social media to demonstrate corporate credibility to other landscape design professionals, which fueled more growth. He was able to reclaim a number of his former key employees. The first big Nantucket project ended up over $1.8 million in completed work. The company grew to $2.6 million in revenue in 2019 and then doubled again in 2021 to $5 million and reached $12 million by 2024.
Now with all-electric maintenance divisions operating on both Nantucket and Cape Cod, the company is expanding into the Boston markets as well. Blue Claw Associates has launched an in-ground pool construction company, Blue Water Pools & Spas Inc., and is an investor in Aqua Blue Window Cleaning Corp.
In 2019, Ian joined the online Facebook group, The Goat Gang, a private subscription group for landscape company owners. The founder of the group, Tigran Gertz, owns and operates Applewood Landscaping in San Jose, California. The Goat Gang allows company owners to share experiences, wins & losses, learn from each other, and help each other grow. After sharing his project videos on the Goat Gang, Ian received an overwhelming number of company owners seeking him out for further learning. This led to dozens of visits to Cape Cod, digital communication & calls, and eventually, Ian organized an event. The event was called Building Better Connections and the first one was held in September 2021. It featured over 35 company owners coming to Cape Cod and Nantucket to tour Ian’s job sites, and an all-day conference. The focus was on teaching attendees how to market their business to landscape architects, designers, and builders. Watch the trip highlights video created by Tigran below.
It was after this event that Ian realized the need to make his 30+ years of business experience more available to other company owners. Thus the Blue Claw Group was created to serve the needs of fellow company owners in helping them to achieve success, avoid pitfalls, and make more profit.
“Touring a $10 MILLION Landscaping & Paving Company“
Visit Tigran Gertz on Youtube
